Tower Defence, as I’ve said before, is a fairly crowded genre on the App Store.It therefore takes something really special to stand out from the crowd.Luckily, iBomber Defence Pacific is that something.

Chillingo’s latest TD game is a sequel to the original iBomber Defence and builds on the first game’s success with a few new features.It also adds a fair bit of extra strategy thanks to the placement of buildings and some nifty enemy AI.Everything else, including the excellent bombing mechanic, which allows you to bomb from above while controlling your standard towers, is still intact.

The game has a war-based theme and this is beautifully realised in both the menus and the in-game graphics.While few Tower Defence games could be said to host fantastic graphics, iBomber Defence Pacific is certainly amongst the best of them and provides an excellent authentic war feel.

The selection of Towers are placed along the bottom of the screen as icons.Many TD games fail by making the tower choice icon too small, but iBomber’s are perfectly designed without getting in the way of the action.The icons are lit up when there is enough cash (earnt from destroying enemy vehicles) to pay for them.

As expected, towers can be upgraded or sold off, but developer Cobra have added a new feature called ‘dig in’ which allows you to dig your tower further in and provide sandbags around it, protecting it from the enemy.In return, digging in will only allow the tower to view a certain space rather than being able to fully rotate to follow an enemy.It’s a great strategic decision that really adds to the game.The only issue I have with this (which is also my only issue in the whole game) is that the positioning of the aim when digging in can become fiddly.

Also new is the range of perks available, unlocked as you complete certain tasks.These perks act a bit like achievements, giving you extra armour, firepower or other benefits in return for reaching certain milestones, such as the number of bullets fired.These are important to the game, especially playing in anything other than the easiest difficult.

That said, the difficulty levels are perfectly pitched.I’m not ashamed to admit I had to go to the lowest difficulty on a few missions, but with better perks installed and forewarned with the strategy of the enemy I managed to go back and complete them on the middle setting.It does mean that the game caters for all skill levels and will be able to provide a good challenge for the dedicated TD player.

Kudos also goes to Cobra for making this universal game just as playable on the smaller iPhone screen as with the iPad’s larger display.The excellent level design and graphics help immensely in this area.That said, if you do have an iPad the game really comes into its own.It’s certainly my favoured platform for Tower Defence.

If you’re a TD fan or even if you’ve yet to try the genre, there’s a lot to recommend in iBomber Defence Pacific.Although it’s still early days, it gets my vote for Tower Defence of the year.